Many consumer electronic devices are now being built with touch sensitive screens, for use with finger or stylus touch user inputs. These devices range from small screen devices such as mobile phones and car entertainment systems, to mid-size screen devices such as notebook computers, to large screen devices such as check-in stations at airports.
User input to a touch sensitive screen has evolved from basic screen taps to sweep gestures and to more elaborate pinch gestures involving coordinated, simultaneous input from two or more fingers. One of the drawbacks of touch screen input is that the user's hand blocks the user's view of the screen. This is especially true with two-finger pinch gestures where the two fingers span a screen diagonal.
It will thus be appreciated that conventional touch screens are not ideal for finger gesture input. It would be beneficial to provide an economic and aesthetic touch screen device that provides an input zone for finger gesture input that does not obstruct view of the screen.